Exemplary embodiments relate generally to managing network elements, and more particularly to managing voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) network elements.
Although VoIP technology has been in the market for several years, its service assurance for performance, reliability, and maintenance automation is relatively new in the network management arena. VoIP billing records, referred to as call detail records (CDRs), from multiple network equipment vendors are used separately to monitor and proactively respond to network or service impacting events. Without a common correlation identifier for CDRs among all VoIP network elements, it is difficult to produce an accurate end-to-end view of a telephone call. Network managers are forced to use inexact methods to correlate events, such as relating in-going and out-going Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. These inexact methods can lead to inaccurate call statistics for the entire VoIP network and for each service supported in the VoIP network. In addition, the performance alerts generated from each type of network element may not reflect the actual trouble area.